Your dead friend on your T-shirt

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The French essayist Marcel Proust once said, "People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad."

He did not, to my knowledge, say, "When people die, the best way to show our love for them is to have their image screen-printed on a cheap T-shirt we got at the mall."

I understand the grief you must feel at the loss of your loved one. I, too, have lost a few people in my lifetime, both friends and family members, and I miss them greatly. But I just can't seem to get behind this idea of plastering their faces on a piece of clothing I plan to sweat on.

T-shirts are great ways to memorialize trips to Six Flags, your love for Skid Row, and your big family reunion that you had in the summer of '96. But unless there was a vendor selling souvenirs at your dead friend's memorial service, doesn't the T-shirt seem to just somehow cheapen the deceased's life? I mean, what's next? A bobble-head of the departed on your dashboard?

Your putting your friend's death in the same category as your favorite corporate logo is why I don't want to hang out with you.